Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a farewell ceremony that publicizing his Holocaust denial was a major achievement of his presidency.

“That was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech Sunday, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency. “We put it forward at the global level. That broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime.”

Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the Holocaust appeared on the Fars site in Arabic, but not on its English website, which covered other aspects of the speech.

Ahmadinejad also called for the Arab world to work together to punish Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

President-elect Hassan Rohani described Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel remarks as “hate rhetoric” that had brought the country to the brink of war, the German news agency DPA reported.

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6 Responses to “Ahmadinejad Calls His Holocaust Denial Major Achievement”

Rabbi DR. Bernhard Rosenberg has been an advocate for Holocaust survivors for years. He is also the only rabbi I know of who is willing to take a stand critical of the Claims Conference leadership. I urge you to follow his writings and speeches that can be found on the internet and stand behind him in fighting for our elderly survivors.

Is It True the Claims Conference May Be Paying Reparations to an alleged Nazi sympathizer?

An Open Letter to Claims Conference Chairman, Rabbi Julius Berman.

by Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg

Two years ago, I read an article about Alex Kurzem in a Melbourne newspaper. Having watched the "60 minutes" segment in horror and disbelief, I've followed this story and the Jewish Claims Conference's involvement.

As a Rabbi, I am ashamed by the Conference's lack of scrutiny in its determination of Kurzem's eligibility for reparations – based purely on a tall tale, which now appears even to have included a fraudulent document! Surely, the Conference has a fiduciary responsibility and owes those who truly were persecuted by the Nazis, to be thorough and discriminating in its validation of veracity. It did not fulfill that responsibility.

Please explain to me, how it is you have been aware of the doubts and inaccuracies of Mr. Kurzem's story since 2009, yet have done nothing about rescinding his reparations?

How does the Claims Conference accept, tolerate, and apparently condone, that in 1972, Kurzem provided an affidavit endorsing the good character of Nazi SS Colonel Karlis Lobe?

Please help me understand the inconsistency in the Haaretz article appearing last year, where Greg Schneider was quoted as saying no fraud was found in Kurzem's application.Yet in the same article, Kurzem claims he never said he "was Ilya Galperin" , the person he claimed to be when filling out his application for reparations.

How does the Conference define persecution? In a 2008 Penthouse article Kurzem is quoted as saying, the Nazis were "my family", “I felt safe; I wasn’t hungry and I was looked after". Please tell me, Rabbi Berman, that cannot possibly qualify as persecution by the Conference's criteria, can it?

A multi-million dollar fraud was committed on your watch already. Isn't that enough embarrassment to the Jewish community? I don't need to remind you of the higher standard to which we, as Jews are always held, and that the Conference cannot afford its integrity to be doubted or compromised.

Six million are owed so much more. Isn't it time, Rabbi Berman the Claims Conference came clean on Kurzem?

(The Testimonies Director at the Centre, Mr Phillip Maisel, who recorded Kurzem’s story formed the impression that his interviewee was not being entirely truthful: “There was something strange about his story, something didn’t add up.” Researcher Colleen Fitzpatrick, concerned with preserving an accurate history of the Jewish Holocaust, has written: "Mr. Kurzem not only has and will continue to experience substantial financial gain and recognition from his books and his movie, he also lectures internationally to school children, thereby feeding the next generation with what may be distortions of the truth.").

WE want to share an e-mail Dr. Fitzpatrick sent to Conference board member, Melvyn Smith a few days ago. This e-mail was also copied to board members, Paul Edlin, Stephan Kramer and Michael Schneider. Both Dr. Fitzpatrick and I spoke to Mr. Edlin via Skype on two occasions. The Kurzem case is very much tied into the fraud as this e-mail illustrates. We have conclusive proof that Mr. Kurzem was assisted by a "runner" in Australia – similar to the 21 convicted in the NYC area. Mr. Berman would like critics to think the U.S. investigation put an end to the fraud. This is not the case. The investigation put an end to the complicit relationship between 10 internal employees and 21 outside "runners" who resided in and around the NYC area. Kurzem's application, we believe is one of hundreds, maybe thousands that were approved based on a fabricated story and fraudulent documentation, but brought forward by runners residing outside the U.S. and without help from inside employees.

Elie Rubenstein points out in your article how the $3500 one-time payment from the Hardship Fund could be a target for fraudsters in a region rife with corruption. Such corruption has been ongoing for years related to applications for reparations. One does not need cooperation from inside employees to obtain approval on a fraudulent claim for reparations. This has been known around the world for almost two decades. We bring you the Kurzem case as an example.

And lastly to Ms. Kessler-Godin's comments about the new procedures to determine the legitimacy of an application. Once again, how many individuals are receiving reparations having slipped their applications through the system before these verification standards were in place? – again, the Kurzem case is a prime example.

Alex Kurzem himself may be "small potatoes", but just like the now infamous "2001 letter", this is another warning that has already gone unheeded for too long.

Why ARE THERE so many Holocaust survivors living in abject poverty while considerable sums continue to be expended by the Claims Conference on causes which lack a genuine relationship with the Holocaust. I would like to see a comprehensive list and I think we all would be quite outraged. RABBI DR. BENRHARD ROSENBERG

More than 20 cars and buildings in a Jewish community in north London were vandalized with swastikas. The Nazi symbol was drawn on approximately 27 cars in the Osbaldeston Road area of Stoke Newington on Sunday night, The Daily Mail reported. An unnamed 32-year-old man was arrested in connection with the vandalism Tuesday. The neighborhood […]

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind called on the Jewish community to attend the funeral of an assassinated New York police officer. “The brave men and women of the NYPD risk their lives every day to protect us. We value them and stand with them,” Hikind, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn, said in a statement […]

Argentina’s president Christina Fernandez has accepted an official Jewish godson for the first time in the country’s history to help counter legend of death to a seventh son. She described in seven tweets her meeting with her new godson, Yair Tawil, a member of a Chabad-Lubavitch family. He was adopted as a godson under a […]